I was totally confused, but basically I figured out the lightness or darkness of a color is it's tone or value.
I was also getting really intimidated by the whole light and shadow thing - but that's pretty important i you're going to do good paintings. The light and shadow is what makes an object appear three dimensional on a flat canvas.
I was starting to wonder if I would ever be able to understand the light and shadow thing, but I figured the only way to figure it out was to do it. So I did one of the painting exercises in "First Steps Series: Painting Oils" by Louise DeMore, which is one of the books from the library that I'm currently reading. Here is what I came up with.
The exercise suggested I paint different objects in black and white to help me figure out tone and value. I think it did help - certain parts of objects had similar shades of grey, so if this painting was in color, the tone of the different colors would be the same in those areas. Now we'll just have to see if I can transfer that concept into a color painting! Stay tuned - I think I'm going to try a simple subject, like a flower or something, in color next.
